New Wood school option would be cheapest for Fairhaven

Wednesday

Sep 29, 2010 at 12:01 AMSep 29, 2010 at 1:30 PM

FAIRHAVEN — Architects gave Fairhaven officials preliminary cost estimates for the proposed school building project this week, saying the least-expensive option would be to demolish Wood Elementary School and build a new school at the Sconticut Neck site.

BETH PERDUE

FAIRHAVEN — Architects gave Fairhaven officials preliminary cost estimates for the proposed school building project this week, saying the least-expensive option would be to demolish Wood Elementary School and build a new school at the Sconticut Neck site.

Of the three options still being considered, building at the Wood School is the cheapest at somewhere between $22 million and $26 million for the total project cost, Laura Wernick, principal at HMFH Architects told the School Building Committee Monday night.

Building a new addition at the Rogers School is next at approximately $26 million to $29 million and renovating both Rogers and Wood to have two smaller schools is the most expensive at about $34 million, Wernick said.

On all three, Wernick emphasized that these are early, and therefore very rough, estimates.

Earlier building proposals at the vacant Oxford School site have been eliminated for several reasons, officials said, including the site's smaller land parcel, which would make building a large school there difficult. Hampering Monday night's conversation somewhat was the need to have the Massachusetts School Building Authority weigh in on a couple of unknowns including whether the MSBA would support a two school project. Although MSBA officials have not given a definitive answer to that question, Wernick said they have indicated they would need to see justification for the proposal in terms of what the educational benefits of having two smaller schools would be.

"They would be looking at that very cautiously," she said.

A potentially larger unknown is what enrollment numbers will be. Although projections were made in cooperation with the MSBA, they now appear to be low, school officials said.

According to Superintendent of Schools Robert Baldwin, current year enrollment, projected to be at 759 students for Grades K-5, is actually at 842 students. Those new numbers are being shared with the MSBA, he said.

"We are meeting with the state to talk about our numbers and how they have spiked a little bit," Baldwin said. "It's being dealt with very immediately."

On Monday, the committee pressed architects and the project manager to get answers from MSBA as soon as possible, particularly given the timeline, which looks to identify a final solution by early November. A decision made by that date would likely be taken up by the MSBA at their January board meeting, committee members said, while missing that meeting would mean a delay of two months.

Even given that timeline, the town would not likely see a ballot question seeking a temporary tax hike to pay for the project, until next fall.

To date, the only two tax increase questions that the town has passed, has been for school projects, according to executive secretary Jeffrey Osuch.

Fairhaven residents are currently paying debt on those projects with approximately $10 million remaining on the high school addition debt which will be paid off in 2017, according to town treasurer John Nunes.

Three loans totaling about $5.5 million for the East Fairhaven school project end in 2018, 2024, and 2027 with the bulk of the debt, $3.4 million, terminating in 2027.

Rough estimates based on the lowest cost for the proposed project put the town's expense at approximately $11 million, Nunes said, with Fairhaven households projected to pay an additional approximately $100 per year each.

The committee meets next at 6 p.m. Oct. 14 at the East Fairhaven School.

A subsequent meeting has been tentatively scheduled for Oct. 20 at Rogers School.